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at the same time his children had by the same right absolute, unlimited power over theirs. Here then are two absolute, unlimited powers existing together, which I would have any body reconcile one to another, or to common sense. For the salvo he has put in of subordination makes it more absurd to have one absolute, unlimited, nay unlimitable power in subordination to another, is so manifest a contradiction, that nothing can be more. "Adam is absolute prince, with the unlimited authority of fatherhood over all his posterity;" all his posterity are then absolutely his subjects; and, as our author says, his slaves, children, and grandchildren, are equally in this state of subjection and slavery; and yet, says our author, "the children of Adam have paternal, i. e. absolute, unlimited power over their own children :" which in plain English is, they are slaves and absolute princes at the same time, and in the same government; and one part of the subjects have an absolute, unlimited power over the other by the natural right of parentage.

§ 70. If any one will suppose in favour of our author, that he here meant that parents, who are in subjection themselves to the absolute authority of their father, have yet some power over their children; I confess he is something nearer the truth: but he will not at all hereby help our author: for he nowhere speaking of the paternal power, but as an absolute, unlimited authority, cannot be supposed to understand any thing else here, unless he himself had limited it, and showed how far it reached; and that he means here paternal authority in that large extent, is plain from the immediately following words: "This subjection of children being," says he, "the foundation of all regal authority," p. 12. The subjection then that in the former line, he says, every man is in to his parents," and consequently what Adam's grandchildren were in to their parents, was that which was the fountain of all regal authority, i. e. according to our author, absolute, unlimitable authority. And thus Adam's children had regal authority over their children, whilst they themselves were subjects to their father, and fellow-subjects with their chil

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dren. But let him mean as he pleases, it is plain he allows" Adam's children to have paternal power," p. 12, as also all other fathers to have " paternal power over their children." O. 156. From whence one of these two things will necessarily follow, that either Adam's children, even in his life time, had, and so all other fathers have, as he phrases it, p. 12, " by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children," or else that Adam," by right of fatherhood, had not royal authority." For it cannot be but that paternal power does, or does not, give royal authority to them that have it if it does not, then Adam could not be sovereign by this title, nor any body else; and then there is an end of all our author's politics at once: if it does give royal authority, then every one that has paternal power has royal authority; and then, by our author's patriarchal government, there will be as many kings as there are fathers.

71. And thus what a monarchy he hath set up, let him and his disciples consider. Princes certainly will have great reason to thank him for these new politics, which set up as many absolute kings in every country as there are fathers of children. And yet who can blame our author for it, it lying unavoidably in the way of one discoursing upon our author's principles? For having placed an "absolute power in fathers by right of begetting," he could not easily resolve how much of this power belonged to a son over the children he had begotten; and so it fell out to be a very hard matter to give all the power, as he does, to Adam, and yet allow a part in his life time to his children when they were parents, and which he knew not well how to deny them. This makes him so doubtful in his expressions, and so uncertain where to place this absolute natural power which he calls fatherhood. Sometimes Adam alone has it all, as p. 13, O. 244, 245, and Pref.

Sometimes parents have it, which word scarce signifies the father alone, p. 12, 19.

Sometimes children during their father's lifetime, as p. 12.

Sometimes fathers of families, as p. 78, 79.

Sometimes fathers indefinitely, O. 155.
Sometimes the heir to Adam, O. 253.

Sometimes the posterity of Adam, 244, 246. Sometimes prime fathers, all sons of grandchildren of Noah, O. 244.

Sometimes the eldest parents, p. 12.

Sometimes all kings, p. 19.

Sometimes all that have supreme power, O. 245. Sometimes heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people, p. 19. Sometimes an elective king, p. 23.

Sometimes those, whether a few or a multitude, that govern the commonweath, p. 23.

Sometimes he that can catch it, an usurper, p. 23. 0. 155.

$ 72. Thus this new nothing, that is to carry with it all power, authority, and government; this fatherhood, which is to design the person, and establish the throne of monarchs, whom the people are to obey; may, according to sir Robert, come into any hands, any how, and so by his politics give to democracy royal authority, and make an usurper a lawful prince. And if it will do all these fine feats, much good do our author and all his followers with their omnipotent fatherhood, which can serve for nothing but to unsettle and destroy all the lawful governments in the world, and to establish in their room disorder, tyranny, and usurpation.

CHAPTER VII.

Of Fatherhood and Property considered together as Fountains of Sovereignty.

$73. IN the foregoing chapters we have seen what Adam's monarchy was in our author's opinion,

and upon what titles he founded it. The foundations which he lays the chief stress on, as those from which he thinks he may best derive monarchical power to future princes, are two, viz. "fatherhood and property:" and therefore the way he proposes to "remove the absurdities and inconveniencies of the doctrine of natural freedom is, to maintain the natural and private dominion of Adam," O. 222. Conform able hereunto, he tell us," the grounds and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property," O. 108. "The subjection of children to their parents is the fountain of all regal authority," p. 12. "And all power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, there being no other original to be found of any power whatsoever," O. 158. I will not stand here to examine how it can be said without a contradiction, that the "first grounds and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property," and yet, "that there is no other original of any power whatsoever but that of the father" it being hard to understand how there can be "no other original but fatherhood," and yet that the "grounds and principles of government depend upon the original of property;" property and fatherhood being as far different as lord of a manor and father of children. Nor do I see how they will either of them agree with what our author says, O. 244, of God's sentence against Eve, Gen. iii. 16," that it is the original grant of government:" so that if that were the original, government had not its original, by our author's own confession, either from property or fatherhood; and this text, which he brings as a proof of Adam's power over Eve, necessarily contradicts what he says of the fatherhood, that it is the "sole fountain of all power:" for if Adam had any such regal power over Eve as our author contends for, it must be by some other title than that of begetting.

$74. But I leave him to reconcile these contradictions, as well as many others, which may plentifully be found in him by any one, who will but read him with

a little attention; and shall come now to consider, how these two originals of government, "Adam's natural and private dominion," will consist and serve to make out and establish the titles of succeeding monarchs, who, as our author obliges them, must all derive their power from these fountains. Let us then suppose Adam made, "by God's donation," lord and sole proprietor of the whole earth, in as large and ample a manner as sir Robert could wish; let us suppose him also," by right of fatherhood," absolute ruler over his children with an unlimited supremacy; I ask then, upon Adam's death, what becomes of both his natural and private dominion? and I doubt not it will be answered, that they descended to his next heir, as our author tells us in several places. But this way, it is plain, cannot possibly convey both his natural and private dominion to the same person for should we allow that all the property, all the estate of the father, ought to descend to the eldest son, (which will need some proof to establish it) and so he has by that title all the private dominion of the father, yet the father's natural dominion, the paternal power, cannot descend to him by inheritance: for it being a right that accrues to a man only by begetting, no man can have this natural dominion over any one he does not beget; unless it can be supposed that a man can have a right to any thing, without doing that upon which that right is solely founded: for if a father by begetting, and no other title, has natural dominion over his children, he that does not beget them cannot have this natural dominion over them; and therefore be it true or false, that our author says, O. 156, That" every man that is born, by his very birth, becomes a subject to him that begets him," this necessarily follows, viz. That a man by his birth cannot become a subject to his brother, who did not beget him; unless it can be supposed that a man by the very same title can come to be under the "natural and absolute dominion" of two different men at once; or it be sense to say, that a man by birth is under the natural dominion of his father, only because he begat him, and a man by birth also is

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